


Becoming Mrs Strange

by AlexSimon



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell & Related Fandoms, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (TV), Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: F/M, Wedding Night
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-11
Updated: 2015-11-11
Packaged: 2018-05-01 05:08:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5193404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexSimon/pseuds/AlexSimon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arabella Woodhope had questions that were not answered before her wedding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Becoming Mrs Strange

There were some things that Arabella Woodhope had wanted to ask before this moment, the one where she was Mrs Strange and very much alone with Mr Strange in the room where they would spend their first night together. She had wanted to ask these things not had the chance to. 

Since becoming the wife to be of Jonathan Strange, Arabella had a feeling that some people may have wanted to tell her things too, but none of them had been able.. 

There was a young woman in the parish whom Arabella had visited on her brother's behalf shortly after becoming engaged to Jonathan. She was very ill in the early months of her first pregnancy. Arabella had brought her soup and sat with her for company for the better part of an afternoon. This young woman had referenced her young husband's gentleness as she gave a small smile and left the word hanging for Arabella to think over. Gentle husbands were a good thing, it was generally thought among ladies, but Arabella Woodhope did not know specifically how a husband would be gentle, though she knew in general how a man might be. Was it so different? When the young man home Arabella watched him. He spoke softly to Miss Woodhop and to his wife, which any person could do, but there was a special care in a kiss he gave to the latter's forehead that Arabella thought was very different than the way he was gentle to the rest of the world. 

Henry had seemed very bothered in the days before the wedding tool. He would sometimes enter a room she was in with his mouth open as if to say something but then leave it again without saying anything at all, but somehow much redder in the face for all his lack of action. 

Arabella caught the old ladies watching her with special interest in church and she thought sometimes that a few of them grinned a bit at her, especially should Jonathan be in attendance and sitting near her. Occasionally, they gave her pats on the knee, but Arabella did not know what those meant, as some of the ladies seemed to be consoling her and some to be conspiring with her and others to be giving her some sort of encouragement. 

Jonathan as well had come to the edge of some topic but not quite broached it, only taking her by the hand instead and asking if she knew that he would care for her and that he would endeavor to be a kind husband. It had been a windy day when they had taken that walk and his hair had blown around in all directions as she looked up at him and she wondered that she had never noticed how well his coloring was suited to fall. 

"If I didn't think that, I wouldn't have agreed to marry you," she had told him and that had made him smile, but he still frowned from time to time as they finished their walk. 

So Arabella Woodhope was now Mrs Strange, a woman with a husband, who had almost been told many things but hadn't. 

Things had not felt terribly different so far now that she was married. They had left the church as Mr and Mrs Strange and ridden in the carriage and talked together and eaten. Most of these were things that she had done with him before, though not all of them alone. Over lunch she had needed to tell Jonathan first that he was making her nervous by talking so much and second that he was in danger of spilling soup on himself, which he then did. 

Now they were alone and the door to the bedroom was shut. Arabella Strange had a tall husband who walked to her and put his hands on her shoulders. I have a tall husband, she thought. He has large hands and they are on my shoulders. 

Jonathan kept his hands like that for some time, studying her face with an a confusing intensity. 

"You must say something, Jonathan."

"First it is I talk too much and now I do not talk enough?"

She did not mean to laugh then, but she did and was glad of it because her husband finally took the breath he had been holding and laughed with her. 

"I have never done moderation well, have I?" he asked. 

"Oh, never mind that." 

Arabella Strange was pulled into an embrace by her husband and rested her cheek on his chest. Mr Strange put his chin on the top of his wife's head. He had always wanted to touch her hair. 

"Are you really happy with me?" 

"That is an odd question to ask a woman who has just married you, Jonathan Strange." 

Arabella Strange felt lips kiss the top her head. 

Any hint she had been given about this moment had led her to believe that she would be frightened, but she was not. Having never been this close to a man, she had nothing else to compare it to, but she thought that of all the things in the world that could scare her that a pair of strong arms encircling her and the lips that kissed her mouth and the very beginning of stubble of a chin did not need to concern her overly much. 

Jonathan led her to the bed, where they sat together. 

"Bell..." he began. "I want you to know that-" 

Jonathan Strange shook his head at himself and ran his hands through his hair. When they were free, his wife took one of them and held it in hers. 

"Please, Jonathan. We're married now. You must be honest with me."

"I am very worried I will hurt you. It has been a great concern of mine. I hope to be- I will try-" 

She did blush a bit at that, at the thought that their bodies would be so close together that he feared of hurting her with his. 

"Gentle," she said. "You will try to be gentle." 

"I will." 

Jonathan Strange leaned forward and gave his wife a kiss and then another. 

Arabella Strange wondered if one of the things that people would have told her, if they had been able, was that even as the newness of feeling of the weight of her husband's body on hers made her nervous at first that it would also feel very natural. She wondered if anyone would have mentioned that while being unclothed in front of one's husband of a few hours was would produce a bit of shyness that he might also look at her with such wonder that it was forgotten.


End file.
